CO2 Residence Time (Soloman vs Segalstad)

[steve]

I don't think I made myself clear. This quote is from Section 3.

folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef3.htm

Houghton et al. (1990) claim in their section 1.2.5 three evidences that the contemporary atmospheric CO2 increase is anthropogenic: First, CO2 measurements from ice cores show a 21% rise from 280 to 353 ppmv (parts per million by volume) since pre-industrial times; second, the atmospheric CO2 increase closely parallels (sic!) the accumulated emission trends from fossil fuel combustion and from land use changes, although the annual increase has been smaller each year than the fossil CO2 input [some 50% deviation, e.g. Kerr, 1992]; third, the isotopic trends of 13C and 14C agree qualitatively (sic!) with those expected due to the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and the biosphere.

Jaworowski et al. (1992 a, 1992 b) reviewed published CO2 measurements from ice cores, and emphasized that the pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 concentration, according to early accurate analyses, was many times larger (measurements up to 2450 ppmv) than the present atmospheric value. They also pointed out that CO2 variations in ice is mainly an artificial effect of a large number of natural physical-chemical processes in ice and the recovered ice cores. These effects dominate over the eventual traces of anthropogenic CO2. Criticism of the methodology has also independently been presented by Heyke (1992 a, 1992 b, 1992 c).

Jaworowski et al. (1992 a) have presented a number of criticisms regarding the methodology of atmospheric CO2 measurements, including spectroscopic instrumental peak overlap errors (from N2O, CH4, and CFCs in the air). They also pointed out that the CO2 measurements at current CO2observatories use a procedure involving a subjective editing (Keeling et al., 1976) of measured data, only representative of a few tens of percent of the total data. There are also fundamental problems connected with the use of stable carbon isotopes (13C/12C) in tree rings for model calculations of earlier atmospheres' CO2 concentration, a method which now seems to have been abandoned (Jaworowski et al., 1992 a).

When there are year on year measured increases in CO2 at numerous independent facilities all of which are fully in line with the whole of the Keeling curve, attempting to cast aspersions on a 33 year old document doesn't wash. The whole argument, that man was the cause of most of the increase in CO2 levels, then fails.

[jtom]

Segalstad is a nutcase because of research conclusions reached by Houghton et al. (1990), and Jaworowski et al. (1992 a, 1992 b)?

I'm still looking for where Segalstad is using wrong CO2 measurements.

Give it up Steve.

[steve]

Aug 10, 2009 15:16:28 GMT jtom said:

Segalstad is a nutcase because of research conclusions reached by Houghton et al. (1990), and Jaworowski et al. (1992 a, 1992 b)?

I'm still looking for where Segalstad is using wrong CO2 measurements.

Give it up Steve.

Houghton's fine. The Jaworowski "research" that I highlighted in bold is the barking bit - I'll make it red as it wasn't obvious.

[icefisher]

Aug 10, 2009 12:45:24 GMT steve said:

The whole argument, that man was the cause of most of the increase in CO2 levels, then fails.

So is this an epiphany?

[steve]

Aug 10, 2009 15:59:57 GMT icefisher said:

Aug 10, 2009 12:45:24 GMT steve said:

The whole argument, that man was the cause of most of the increase in CO2 levels, then fails.

So is this an epiphany?

There should of course be a "not" somewhere in there.

[jtom]

Yes, I saw the bolded part. Still, please tell me, are you calling Segalstad a nut case because he had the audacity to reference a research paper you don't agree with?

BTW, the guy that Segalstad sited:
Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski is chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw and former chair of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. He was a principal investigator of three research projects of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and of four research projects of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has held posts with the Centre d'Etude Nucleaires near Paris; the Biophysical Group of the Institute of Physics, University of Oslo; the Norwegian Polar Research Institute and the National Institute for Polar Research in Tokyo.

Yep, ya gotta be a nut case to cite any of his research.

And I still don't see any CO2 misrepresentations. by Segalstad.

Give it up, Steve

[icefisher]

Aug 10, 2009 19:24:12 GMT jtom said:

Yep, ya gotta be a nut case to cite any of his research.

And I still don't see any CO2 misrepresentations. by Segalstad.

Give it up, Steve

Keep this thread going and no doubt 3 hands will be waving soon.

[socold]

Aug 10, 2009 0:23:36 GMT magellan said:

Aug 9, 2009 23:34:21 GMT socold said:

Same way, plus more. On the last page magellan posted a table.

The paper just redoes these calculations which are already reported by the IPCC.

that's the entire point
Nothing new.

Reconsideration of atmospheric CO2 lifetime: potential mechanism for explaining CO2 missing sink
meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2009/EGU2009-3381.pdf

However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1996) reports that the CO2 lifetime (residence time) in the atmosphere is 50 to 200 years.

Keep trying socold.....

Same mistake. Again you and them are confusing residence time of an average co2 molecule - which the IPCC does not claim is 50 to 200 years - with the residence time for a co2 increase. How long it takes for a co2 increase to drop back where it started is a different concept from how long an average co2 molecule stays in the atmosphere for.

[jtom]

Aug 10, 2009 19:39:10 GMT icefisher said:

Aug 10, 2009 19:24:12 GMT jtom said:

Yep, ya gotta be a nut case to cite any of his research.

And I still don't see any CO2 misrepresentations. by Segalstad.

Give it up, Steve

Keep this thread going and no doubt 3 hands will be waving soon.

LOL! The funny thing is, if Steve had only made the comment that he didn't agree with the CO2 levels presented in the paper, I wouldn't have made any comment. That different researchers come to different conclusions is oft times the case. But he had to go and call the guy a nut case. Ad homonym arguments in science is just unforgivably inappropriate. If someone is a nut case you should be able to show it through the science, letting the readers arrive at that conclusion, themselves.

The tone of those who support AGW is so virulent (deniers have a psychological problem; they need to be retrained; they should be kicked out of the Meteorological Society; and so on) that it's getting hard to look at the research with an open mind. To me, giving credence to AGW is beginning to feel like supporting the Church against Galileo.

[socold]

Aug 10, 2009 19:24:12 GMT jtom said:

And I still don't see any CO2 misrepresentations. by Segalstad.

Apart from him misrepresenting the IPCC's position.

Apart from him implying there is only one type of co2 residence time.

Apart from him falsely comparing the IPCC figure for pulse residence time with molecule residence time.

yes apart from all those misrepresentations I agree I don't see any misrepresentations.

Here's some more detail because clearly a lot of people are having amazing trouble understanding the difference between residence time of a molecule and residence time of a molecule and residence time of a pulse.

If you have a water tank containing 50 gallons with 10 gallons per minute flowing in and 10 gallons per minute flowing out then the average lifetime of a water molecule in the tank is roughly 50/10 = 5 minutes.

If for just one minute you increase the inflow to 11 gallons per minute, the total amount of water in the tank will increase to 51 gallons. The question is how long will it take for the water level to fall back to 50 gallons after the inflow is restored back to 10 gallons per minute.

Obviously it could be never. But if the extra water causes the outflow to increase, but only slightly, it could slowly drop back down to 50 gallons.

It could take minutes, it could take hours, it could take days.

But crucially it is not the same thing as the average lifetime of a molecule.

Stegalstad presents the average lifetime figure for a molecule of co2, eg when he says:
Essenhigh (2009) uses the IPCC data of 1990 with a total mass of carbon of 750 gigatons in the atmospheric CO2 and a natural input/output exchange rate of 150 gigatons of carbon per year (Houghton et al., 1990). The characteristic decay time (denoted by the Greek letter tau) is simply the former value divided by the latter value: 750 / 150 = 5 years

He's done exactly what I did with the water tank example to calcualte the average lifetime of a molecule there.

What he does then is misrepresentat the IPCC as if the IPCC disputes this. The IPCC doesn't of course, he even quotes the IPCC confirming acceptance of it:
IPCC: "This means that on average it takes only a few years before a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is taken up by plants or dissolved in the ocean"

So what's the big deal why is he claiming the IPCC disagree?

Because he's confusing the parts of the report where the IPCC are talking about the residence time of a co2 increase rather than the residence time of a molecule.

Is he really confusing it? How can someone who wants to give the impression they are an expert on this manage to foul up and confuse themselves so badly? Does he really not understand the difference or does he figure he can get away with wording the article to imply there is no difference? You decide.

Finally:
"With such short residence times for atmospheric CO2, Essenhigh (2009) correctly points out that it is impossible for the anthropogenic combustion supply of CO2 to cause the given rise in atmospheric CO2."

See how stupid this is now? It's like saying "with such a short residence time for water molecules in the water tank (5 minutes), it is impossible for an extra inflow of 1 gallon per minute to cause the rise in water level in the tank"

[nautonnier]

Socold
your claim "See how stupid this is now? It's like saying "with such a short residence time for water molecules in the water tank (5 minutes), it is impossible for an extra inflow of 1 gallon per minute to cause the rise in water level in the tank" is only true if the rate of absorption of CO₂ by plants, water and the ocean is fixed like the flow of water out of your tank analogy.

I presume that there are studies that you can cite which show that the rate of loss of CO₂ from the atmosphere is a constant unaffected by temperature or atmospheric percentage CO₂?

[socold]

Aug 10, 2009 22:48:06 GMT jtom said:

Aug 10, 2009 19:39:10 GMT icefisher said:

Keep this thread going and no doubt 3 hands will be waving soon.

LOL! The funny thing is, if Steve had only made the comment that he didn't agree with the CO2 levels presented in the paper, I wouldn't have made any comment. That different researchers come to different conclusions is oft times the case. But he had to go and call the guy a nut case. Ad homonym arguments in science is just unforgivably inappropriate. If someone is a nut case you should be able to show it through the science, letting the readers arrive at that conclusion, themselves.

Creationist geologists can come to different conclusions too. They are degreed researchers who write papers.

When they are babbling on about the fine points of how the physics of zircon crystals prove the Earth isn't older than a few thousand years old it isn't possible to show they are wrong "through the science". Afterall not many of us understand zircon crystals.

Often you have to look at the red flags instead and yes it is valid to do so. Cries of persecution are one such, ideological rants against the IPCC are another (when they are in a paper!). Continuous publications that receive low citation rates (ie aren't convincing other experts in the field) is another.

It isn't an equal field where one researcher is as equal as another. There are plenty of experts who try their luck outside their expertize and jump their own abilities and write horrifically flawed papers. Perhaps because they haven't studied the area they are writing a paper about enough.

[jtom]

Um, ok. Socold. So you didn't see any faulty atmospheric CO2 measurements in this paper folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef0.htm) either?

I guess we're in agreement that the measurements are as they should be. Now if you disagree with his methodology and conclusions, please don't hold back.

[socold]

Aug 10, 2009 23:24:06 GMT nautonnier said:

Socold
your claim "See how stupid this is now? It's like saying "with such a short residence time for water molecules in the water tank (5 minutes), it is impossible for an extra inflow of 1 gallon per minute to cause the rise in water level in the tank" is only true if the rate of absorption of CO₂ by plants, water and the ocean is fixed like the flow of water out of your tank analogy.

No and in fact the very example I gave had the output increasing with increased water level in the tank:
"But if the extra water causes the outflow to increase, but only slightly, it could slowly drop back down to 50 gallons. It could take minutes, it could take hours, it could take days."

And here's the important part:
crucially (the amount of time to return to previous level) is not the same thing as the average lifetime of a molecule.

Ie calculating the average molecular lifetime and then claiming this gives you the residence time of an increase is just false logic, but Segalstad has done a sweet job of convincing so many people to accept such false logic.

[socold]

Aug 10, 2009 23:27:25 GMT jtom said:

Um, ok. Socold. So you didn't see any faulty atmospheric CO2 measurements in this paper folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/esef0.htm) either?

I guess we're in agreement that the measurements are as they should be. Now if you disagree with his methodology and conclusions, please don't hold back.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

But having looked at that website I see he's planting a whole load of other misconceptions too.

It's pseudoscience pure and simple. He seems to me to be driven by an ideology and is just churning out arguments that have not to date convinced any experts in the field.